DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
New Rejection Applied
The indication of allowability is withdrawn and a rejection is made below based on prior art that has just come to the examiner’s attention, partly as a result of the recent information disclosure.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the GitHub articles “Launching the application when a NFC tag is scanned” dated January 31st, 2013 and the GitHub article “PhoneGap NFC Plugin” which is copyright 2011-2020 by Chariot Solutions.
Re claim 21:
The following are excerpts from the first article:
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The comment continues:
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And the following is an excerpt from the second article:
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These excerpts, taken together, illustrate claim 21 of the instant invention quite well. An NFC tag (which can take the form of a contactless card or even be broadly be considered a contactless card since it is usually flat) can be queried by a portable user device (the whole discussion relates to apps on android devices such as a smartphone).
Parameters/data is read from the card/tag and from there an application can be launched, and actions can be performed based on the data that is on the tag.
Re claims 22-40:
See discussions re claim 21 above.
The matter of launching additional applications is mere replication of parts in view of what is shown in the above excerpts. In other words, if you can launch one application based on proximity to a contactless card, you can launch any number of applications.
As far as timing, delays and ordering of application launches, those are simple to program if there is the functionality to launch applications based on proximity to a tag. It is obvious to use delays and timing measures so that multiple applications do not compete for a user’s attention.
Regarding restricting use to one particular application, using this API, application calls can be made to just particular applications and not others.
As for secure communications, that would be standard for many kinds of uses, including in the case of banking applications. In such a case, a secure encrypted channel would be established first, before communications proceed.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DANIEL A HESS whose telephone number is (571)272-2392. The examiner can normally be reached Monday through Friday, from 9 AM to 5 PM.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Thomas K. Pham can be reached at (571)272-3689. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/DANIEL A HESS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2876
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